uniˈversalism
[f. as prec. Cf. F. universalisme.]
1. The fact or quality of being concerned with or interested in all or a great variety of subjects; universality of knowledge.
| c 1827 Coleridge in Blackw. Mag. (1882) CXXXI. 119 The all-meaningness and thin-blown bladdery universalisms of the lectures. 1838 New Monthly Mag. LIV. 132 The full-blown facility of modern universalism. 1877 Morley Crit. Misc. Ser. ii. 247 That weak kind of universalism which nullifies some otherwise good men. |
2. Theol. The beliefs or special views held by the Universalists; the doctrine of universal salvation or redemption.
| 1805 J. Spaulding (title), Universalism Confounds and Destroys Itself. 1840 G. S. Faber Christ's Disc. Capernaum 224 A tremendously wide and long enduring Apostasy..is..rhetorically spoken of in terms which literally import Universalism. 1864 J. Donaldson Crit. Hist. Chr. Lit. & Doctr. I. 37 Heathen Christianity..proclaimed all men alike in God's sight. Paul was the preacher of this universalism. 1871 Mozley Univ. Serm. v. (1876) 112 The waves of universalism..cannot possibly shake the seat of distributed power and government. |
3. The fact or condition of being universal in character or scope; universality.
| 1835 Leigh Hunt's London Jrnl. 11 July 221/1 What (if we might take the liberty to coin a word) we would call the universalism of the Homeric poetry. 1840 T. Gordon tr. Menzel's Germ. Lit. III. 288 Poetical Universalism.—Herder. 1882 Athenæum 14 Oct. 490/1 It is, indeed, somewhat doubtful whether the religion of Rome did not approach universalism almost as much as Islam. 1883 Fairbairn City of God iii. i. 230 This is..the universalism of Jesus Himself... He belongs to humanity, not to Israel. Ibid. 240 The universalism of the person has its counterpart in the universalism of the words. |
b. spec. in Sociol. and Econ., contrasted with particularism 5 b and regionalism 1.
| 1939 T. Parsons in Social Forces May 462/2 The fact that the central focus of the professional rôle lies in a technical competence gives a very great importance to universalism in the institutional pattern governing it. 1947 ― Weber's Theory Social & Econ. Organization 72 Ethical universalism, the insistence on treatment of all men by the same generalized, impersonal standards. 1955 Bull. Atomic Sci. Apr. 142 The humanitarian theme of the two preceding centuries certainly persisted, but universalism yielded step by step to national particularism. |